in iiij places and mynstralsey of Organ pleyinge and seint George havying this speche under wrytten . . . . .”
In proof of the legend having been the subject of a folk-play, it is to be noted that at the performance of the play of “St. George” at Basingbourne in 1511, John Hobard, a brotherhood priest, received 2s. 8d. for “bearing the book”, or, in other words, for filling the office of prompter (J. P. Collier, Hist. Dram. Poet.). Throsby, the historian of Leicester, describes the “Riding of the George” as “the grandest solemnity of the town”. It was a point of honour with the Gild of St. George in Leicester to maintain the custom. An Act of the Corporation Common Hall, passed in 1467, made it incumbent on all the inhabitants to attend the mayor “for the Riding of the George.” Penalties were inflicted by the Corporation upon itself, or its officers, for failure to uphold the ceremony. In 1523 it was ordered by the Common Hall that whoever should be master of St. George’s Gild, “should cause the George to be ridden, according to the old ancient custom, that is to say, between St. George’s day and Whitsunday.” In case of neglect a penalty of five pounds was to be inflicted; and if the mayor and chamberlains failed to enforce it, they were to be fined respectively 26s. 8d. and 6s. 8d. From an entry in the Chamberlain’s Account in 1536, of an item “for dressing of the dragon”, we may infer that the Leicester ceremony was of the usual kind, although it is always quaintly styled “the Riding of the George”. There was a Gild of St. George at Norwich, and the pageant of “St. George and the Dragon” always accompanied the mayor and corporation in their processions.
Passing now from the dramatised versions of the legend of St. George and the Dragon, let us briefly review another folk-drama, the Robin Hood play. This play, which is printed in Gutch’s Robin Hood, is the direct outcome of the May Games. When we survey the early English celebration of the great spring festival we become already conscious of resemblances to the folk-lore of other races; the
